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they might be offended if not at the assumption of their Name, yet
at assuming the Lex parliamenti which they may be apt to Consider
as a right peculiar to themselves your rights Gentlemen are founded
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U. H. J.
Liber No. 36
April 24
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only in the Royal Charter, your perticular Usages, and the Common
Law of England what those Rights are, the Charter, Journals and
Law Books may inform you, But we shrewdly suspect you will be
so far from supporting your Extraordinary Claims from either of
them, that the Charter and Journals in perticular will operate
Strongly against them, and to support that part of our last Message,
with which you seem to have been so highly Offended; and here
upon you Intimate that you had not time at present to look fully
into the matter, we leave you to Cultivate an Acquaintance with
your own Journals, where you will undoubtedly find Sufficient Evi-
dence from the earliest to the present times to destroy all pretence
of right to your Exorbitant Claims; that the Body now called the
Lower House and that now called the Upper House were Coeval;
that after Several years Consideration, Our Constitution was Es-
tablished in its present form, Ever since which the Upper House has
been a Constitutional Check upon any frantick humour that might
Siese the Lower House, and we are well Satisfied that at this per-
ticular Season every Sensable Man applauds the foresight and
Wisdom of our Ancestors in that Establishment
The Earliest Establishment of our Constitution being in its present
form, your Objection to the Upper House as a Dependant Branch
of the Legislature, becomes the more rediculous; and when it is
Considered that the Several Legislatures in British America (except
One or two at most Consist of three Branches, and that the middle
Branch is Each three Instances only Excepted) is appointed in
Like manner with our Selves, We hope you will not think an Upper
House a misfortune peculiar to this Province nor Expect to persuade
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p. 96
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Us to give up our Existence while there are so many Similar Bodies
in America to Counternance our Claim; and were we as much
disposed to rail at former times as you seem to be, We might in
your Taste censure the proprietary and that Body now called the
Upper House for admitting such a Branch as the Lower House
into the Legislature, and charged it upon them as an Evil, which the
People of this Province most Sensibly feel (as in deed they do very
much to their Cost) and which we fear their latest posterity will
have cause to lament, But having no private Interests to serve or
Publick disturbances to raise, We forbear your Message being
altogether in the Declamatory Strain, and Adapted much rather
to Inflame an Assembly of your Constituents than to Correct Errors
by Convincing the understanding in a Legislative Course of proceed-
ing and having we think Sufficiently Manifested your pretensions,
to the two Important points you Claim, to be intirely Groundless,
We shall totally disregard the various plantoms you have been
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p. 97
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